All UP! Scholarship and FTU Scholarship Patrons must be FTU members. Memberships cost $100/family per year.

If you believe in the mission of Free Think University -- to engage the
generations in dialogue together about the Big Questions -- then please
consider helping to launch the work of our 501 (c) 3 non-profit foundation.

Free Think University is committed to offering free, world-class learning experiences to any student, anywhere - in an environment where free inquiry is encouraged and celebrated. Our learning community is part of a broader shift in the way that formative higher education will be experienced in the future.

Students of all ages and backgrounds and perspectives are engaged at Free Think University. They become more aware of "The Great Conversation" - the contest of ideas - that has captured the passion and imagination and wonderment of generations before them, and will continue after them. Here, we are all learners and we all become participants.

We are also working hard to become the nation's fastest-growing independent college scholarship fund, identifying and equipping and rewarding those who demonstrate initiative in thinking critically about the questions that will shape our future as a nation. The scholarships administered by Free Think University will grow as we provide excellent service to the members who utilize our "learn-to-earn" platform.

Free Think University offers multi-media courses about The Great Ideas that shape our culture. Based on inquiries from our students, we curate a collection of some of the best content from some of the world's leading thinkers, creating a forum for the age-old contest of ideas. A pioneer in the "learn-to-earn" movement, Free Think U rewards students with scholarships for college and other life experiences.

To create a scholarship, you will need to sign up as a donor on the Free Think University website and establish your account. From there you can select My Scholarships and create your scholarship. Press OK below to continue to the Log In page and choose the "Not A Member? Click Here" option to complete your account setup.

Political analyst and social critic Os Guinness provides both historical and current evidence that suggests America is perilously close to reaching this point today.

Richard Dawkins

Clinton Richard Dawkins is an English evolutionary biologist and author. His NY Times best-selling books include “The Selfish Gene,” popularizing the gene-centered view of evolution.

C.S.Lewis

Clive Staples Lewis was a novelist, poet, academic medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian, and Christian apologist. He is best known for his fictional work, especially “The Chronicles of Narnia” and “The Screwtape Letters,” which have made him one of the world’s most popular modern writers.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American clergyman, activist, and leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using non-violent civil disobedience.

Clara Barton

Clarissa Barton was an American teacher, patent clerk, nurse and humanitarian. She was the founder of the American Red Cross and built a “career” helping others at a time when relatively few women worked outside of the home.

Timothy Keller

Timothy Keller is an American Christian theologian and philosopher who is a NY Times best-selling author, speaker and the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, New York.

Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed countless devices that made a an impact on life worldwide – including the phonograph, the motion picture camera and the light bulb. He is one of the most prolific inventors in history.

Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein, widely regarding as one of the most influential of all modern scientists, was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the general theory of relativity, one of the two pillars of modern physics. He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Ben Carson

Benjamin Carson, Sr. is one of the most prominent neurosurgeons of the last century, and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2008 for his work in advancing scientific and civic dialogue.

Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson is considered to be one of the most important American poets, writing during the late 1800’s though her fame would not rise until after her death in 1886.

John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy (or “JFK”) was the 35th President of the United States. He was a military commander in WWII, the second youngest president, the only non-Protestant President, and the only president to have won the Pulitzer Prize.

Ben Franklin

Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman and diplomat – a major figure in the American Enlightenment.

Salman Rushdie

Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie is a British Indian novelist and essayist who risked his life to publish a NY Times best-selling book entitled Satanic Verses. He since published a book detailing his fight to survive the death threats from Islamic extremists.

Maya Angelou is an American author and poet. She is best known for her series of autobiographies which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. She was active in the American Civil Rights movement and holds the first Reynolds Professorship of American Studies at Wake Forest University.

Ronald Reagan

Ronal Reagan was the 40th President of the United States. Before that, he was the governor of California and a radio, film and television actor. He is the founder of “Reagonomics,” a supply-side economic program.

Rudyard Kipling

Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English short-story writer, poet, and novelist chiefly remembered for his tales and poems of British soldiers in India and his tales for children.

Matthew Spalding

Matthew Spalding is the vice president for American Studies at the Heritage Foundation. He is a constitutional scholar, historian and best-selling author.

Malala Yousafzai

Malala Yousafzai is a Pakistani school pupil and education activist from the town of Mingora. She is the youngest nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize in history. She is known for her education and women’s rights activism in the Swat Valley, where girls’ education is banned.

Robert Frost

Robert Lee Frost was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech.

Walt Whitman

Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works.

T.S. Eliot

Thomas Stearns Eliot OM was a publisher, playwright, literary and social critic and "one of the twentieth century's major poets."

Carl Sandburg

Carl Sandburg was an American writer and editor, best known for his poetry. He was the recipient of three Pulitzer Prizes: two for his poetry and another for his biography of Abraham Lincoln.

Paul Ehrlich

Paul Ehrlich was a German physician and scientist who worked in the fields of hematology, immunology, and chemotherapy.

Leonard Read

Leonard Edward Read was an American economist and the founder of the Foundation for Economic Education, which was the first modern free market think tank in the United States.

F.A. Hayek

Friedrich August Hayek CH, born in Austria-Hungary as Friedrich August von Hayek and frequently known as F. A. Hayek, was an Austrian, later British, economist and philosopher best known for his defense of classical liberalism.

Rod Dreher

Rod Dreher is an American writer and editor. He was a conservative editorial writer and a columnist for The Dallas Morning News, but departed that newspaper in late 2009 to affiliate with the John Templeton Foundation.

Pope Benedict

Supreme Pontiff emeritus of the Catholic Church. He was Pope from 2005 to 2013. In that position, he was both the leader of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of the Vatican City State. Benedict was elected Pope on 19 April 2005 in a papal conclave and resigned on 28 February 2013.

Armand Nicholi

Armand M. Nicholi, M.D., Jr. is a clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital.

Satchel Paige

Leroy Robert "Satchel" Paige was an American baseball player whose pitching in the Negro leagues and in Major League Baseball made him a legend in his own lifetime.

Mark Levin

Mark Reed Levin is an American lawyer, author, conservative commentator, and the host of American syndicated radio show The Mark Levin Show.

Paul Kengor

Paul Kengor is a professor of political science at Grove City College. He is the executive director of the College's Center for Vision and Values.

Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham was a British philosopher, jurist, and social reformer. He is regarded as the founder of modern utilitarianism.

Bjarke Ingels

Bjarke Ingels is a Danish architect. He heads the architectural practice Bjarke Ingels Group which he founded in 2006. In 2009 he co-founded the design consultancy KiBiSi.

Adam Smith

Adam Smith was a Scottish moral philosopher and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Adam Smith is best known for two classic works: The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776).

Arthur Brooks

Arthur C. Brooks is an American social scientist and musician. He is the president of the American Enterprise Institute, a nonpartisan think tank. Brooks is best known for his work on the junctions between culture, economics, and politics.

Cornel West

Cornel Ronald West is an American philosopher, academic, activist, author, and prominent member of the Democratic Socialists of America. West is a 1973 graduate of Harvard University and received his PhD at Princeton University.

Leo Tolstoy

Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, also known as Leo Tolstoy, was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays.

Samuel Jackson

Samuel Leroy Jackson is an American film and television actor and film producer. After becoming involved with the Civil Rights Movement, he moved on to acting in theater at Morehouse College, and then films.

Francis Collins

Francis Sellers Collins is an American physician-geneticist noted for his discoveries of disease genes and his leadership of the Human Genome Project. He currently serves as Director of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.

George Washington Carver

George Washington Carver, was an American scientist, botanist, educator, and inventor. The exact day and year of his birth are unknown; he is believed to have been born into slavery in Missouri in January 1864.

Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, physicist, and futurist best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current electricity supply system.

Louis Pasteur

Louis Pasteur was a French chemist and microbiologist who was one of the most important founders of medical microbiology. He is remembered for his remarkable breakthroughs in the causes and preventions of diseases.

Michael Faraday

Michael Faraday, FRS was an English scientist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. His main discoveries include those of electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism and electrolysis.

René Descartes

René Descartes was a French philosopher, mathematician, and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic.

"PZ" Myers

Paul Zachary "PZ" Myers is an American scientist and associate professor of biology at the University of Minnesota Morris. He is founder and co-author of the Pharyngula science blog, hosted on both the Science Blogs and Freethought Blogs networks.

Stephen J. Gould

Stephen Jay Gould was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was also one of the most influential and widely read writers of popular science of his generation.

Charles Darwin

Charles Robert Darwin, FRS was an English naturalist. He proposed the scientific theory that the branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist who became known as the founding father of psychoanalysis.

Booker T. Washington

Booker Washington was an African-American educator, author, orator, and adviser to several Presidents of the United States who became well known for his advocacy of moral education.

John Lennox

John Lennox is a British mathematician and philosopher of science who is a Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University, and is known as the last living student who was tutored by C.S. Lewis.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. He was also the first American to translate Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy and was one of the five Fireside Poets.

A check in payment of your scholarship award will be sent from Free Think U Foundation directly to your College or University's Financial Aid Office - except in the case of UP! Scholarships (which are payable from the sponsor of the scholarship to you or to your college or university).

Yes. We request that scholarship winners send the following information: a personal photo (preferably in .jpg format); a biographical sketch including future career plans; the name of the college or university you are (or will be) attending; your field of study; and a 1-2 sentence summary about your Free Think U experience.

Free Think U will post a "Points Leaderboard" relating to the general standings as well as updates on designated competitions for a specific college or university or other affinity group. Make sure you are signed up for the scholarship updates newsletter; and that you check in on your dashboard for scholarship information specific to you.

EDUCATION FUNDING, MOVING SMARTER

Give flight to the dreams of young people you select while grounding their view of the world.
UP! Scholarships give the students in your life the opportunity to earn part (or all) of your financial support for their college costs and other life experiences.

HOW IT WORKS FOR THE STUDENT

Powered by Free Think University®, UP! Scholarships enable students to earn scholarships for educational and cross-cultural programs.
These scholarships are designated by the scholarship sponsor for a specific student or group of students, and are “unlocked” as they
complete free online course experiences relating to the Big Questions.

As the sponsor, you pick the course experiences the student is to complete. They’ll engage different perspectives: making up their
own minds about what they believe. (No “litmus test” is required of students to pass a course – an online assessment will confirm their interaction with the content.) We’ll report to you the student’s progress,
and offer a few suggested questions you might want to discuss with them.

“It is the mark of an educated mind to entertain an idea without accepting it.” Aristotle

Invest in your student’s life by engaging them in The Great Conversation.